So you’re at playgroup enjoying a cuppa when your 3 year old snatches the (rather awesome) Buzz Lightyear another child is playing with. The other child is, understandably, upset.
How do you react?
- Tell your child to give Buzz back, and if he doesn’t comply you take it from him and give it back yourself. You have clear rules for behaviour and expect obedience.
- Tell your child to give Buzz back. If he doesn’t comply you acknowledge that Buzz is really awesome and point out that he needs to wait his turn. You insist that Buzz is given back to the other child, but let your child know that you understand it is really hard to wait your turn sometimes.
- You don’t intervene at all. You don’t like to place limits on your child as you like to encourage his creativity, and the other child has had a long turn of Buzz already.
- You don’t intervene at all. You don’t tend to think much about what behaviour you accept or expect from your child.
We may react differently to the situation on different days depending on our mood or how tired we are. Over time though, we tend to respond to our children’s behaviour in a fairly consistent manner that reflects our individual and cultural values about discipline, warmth and nurturing, communication, and expectations of our children. Psychologists refer to this as our parenting style.
The four responses above exemplify four different parenting styles. Authoritarian parents tend to set firm rules which their children must obey without negotiation. They don’t express a lot of warmth or nurturing, and feedback they give to their child is generally about what the child has done wrong. Authoritative parents also set firm boundaries, but they are warm and responsive to their child’s emotional state. They are willing to consider the child’s input in decision-making, and they provide supportive, encouraging feedback. Permissive parents are nurturing, warm and responsive to their children’s needs, and they tend not to place many limits or restraints over their child’s desires. Lastly, Uninvolved parents tend not to express much warmth or nurturing, are not very responsive to their child’s emotional needs, and place few if any limits or boundaries on their child’s behaviour.
Parenting style is closely associated with children’s levels of happiness, self-esteem, and self-control. Children of authoritarian parents tend to be successful at school but have lower levels of happiness and self-esteem. Authoritative parenting is consistently linked with happy, confident, capable children, while children of permissive parents tend to have difficulty with authority, lower success at school, and lower levels of happiness. Children of uninvolved parents fare the poorest, often displaying poor school performance, poor self-esteem, and poor self control.
For those who may be thinking their response in the Buzz Lightyear scenario isn’t quite what they’d like it to be, the good news is that parenting style CAN be changed. While some people are able to self-reflect on what they would like to change, others prefer to seek the help of a psychologist or family therapist to do this. If a change in parenting style could result in increased self-esteem and happiness in a struggling child, it’s a mission well worth undertaking.
